Brittany Higgins responds to Linda Reynolds interview

Former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins has responded to her former boss senator Linda Reynold’s broad-ranging interview.

Brittany Higgins outside court during the Bruce Lehrmann trial in October 2022. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Brittany Higgins has responded to her former boss, Liberal senator Linda Reynolds, who for the first time since Ms Higgins’ initial rape allegation spoke in a broad-ranging interview with The Weekend Australian.

Ms Higgins criticised one of the reports for referencing parts of her diary, saying no journalist should have been able to access “private information” she entrusted to police to aid their sexual assault investigation.

The report in The Weekend Australian revealed various media and political engagements in the week before the March 2021 March4Justice protest at Parliament where Ms Higgins spoke.

Ms Higgins tweeted: “Stop publishing the private contents of my phone. I voluntarily provided this material to the police to help them form the brief of evidence and none of it was tabled in court.

“Therefore, no journalist should have seen the photo of my diary. I entrusted the police with my private information for the sole purpose that it could aid their investigation into my sexual assault, nothing else.”

In another Twitter post, Ms Higgins expressed incredulity at Senator Reynolds’ claim that she was in “no state to defend” herself in a defamation suit brought by Ms Higgins after the West Australian senator had called her “a lying cow”.

Senator Reynolds says she paid Ms Higgins compensation over the gibe simply to “make it go away” and was in poor health and on sick leave at the time.

“I’m publicly defamed by my former employer … I donate the money to charity … somehow Linda Reynolds is the victim in this scenario?” Ms Higgins asked in the Twitter post.

I voluntarily provided this material to the police to help them form the brief of evidence and none of it was tabled in court.

Therefore, no journalist should have seen the photo of my diary (2/3).

— Brittany Higgins (@BrittHiggins_) February 17, 2023

 The former staffer confirmed in her Twitter post that she “immediately donated” all funds from that fee to the Canberra Rape Crisis Centre as she had promised and attached a screenshot showing a payment, dated March 15, 2021, to the organisation.

As I wasn’t given a right of reply for this particular story I figured I’d clear it up here.

I donated all funds from my defamation case against Senator Reynolds to a sexual assault charity the moment they were received by my lawyer in 2021.

See the receipt below. pic.twitter.com/ubQoQ7voxu

— Brittany Higgins (@BrittHiggins_) February 18, 2023

Ms Higgins made national headlines in 2021 when she alleged she had been raped two years earlier by a colleague in Senator Reynolds’ Parliament House office.

The colleague was later revealed to be Bruce Lehrmann, whose trial on rape charges was aborted last October due to juror misconduct.

Mr Lehrmann pleaded not guilty and has at all times denied the allegations. The Director of Public Prosecutions has now withdrawn the charges.